Right few things:
Visable counter – This would be completely pointless….because
a) The awards night would be not nearly as good – There would be no surprises or anything – Would you tune into the oscars if you knew who had won already?
b) It would/could skew the votes – e.g. If I was going to vote for xxx casino and saw that they only had 1% vote but the casino I hate had 42% votes and then a casino I thought was OK had 39% I may either not vote because I knew I couldn’t make a difference OR I would vote for the OK casino to stop the casino I hate winning
Results from last year – Please remember when someone votes they see it from different view points – Here are just a few reasons why they believe that person to be their “favourite” affiliate:
a) They send loads of traffic
b) They rank really high for great key words
c) They support many newbie affiliates in the forums
d) They are an affiliate that person aspires to be
e) They fight for affiliate’s rights
f) They simply like the guy
The list could go on but remember the greatest thing about this is that it represents the view of the industry as a whole so what is good to you might not be to me, for example I think RTR is a great affiliate and has done bloody well in a relatively short space of time but you prefer another – C’est la vie the majority will decide
This years nominations
As Dom mentioned we have had nominations open from April – Sept for anyone to nominate affiliates and programs who they think should deserve an award – This is the same as last year and was sent out to thousands of individuals through, email, newsletters, direct mail, magazines and much more so with regards to people who you feel should be on there either you didn’t nominate them or they wern’t nominated enough but unfortunately it will have to be next year
The Process
As per the website under “About CAP Awards” the voting isn’t just votes it is also influenced by a panel of some key affiliates, vendors and operators which keeps the final decision balanced and hopefully stops incentivised voting etc. – This is a straight quote from the site
The CAP Awards are decided by two voting bodies. The affiliate nominations come via members of http://www.casinoaffiliateprograms.com and http://www.pokeraffiliateprograms.com and share around 75% of the closing result. The independent judiciary panel is made up of 10 respected operators, affiliates and vendors. These individuals add vital industry insight and expertise as well as ensuring that the nominations are well-placed and the awards operate a clean and non-biased system.
I do want to finish with one thing – We will all never agree 100% because as I say we all approach the awards in different ways BUT when I started these last year my one promise to myself was that I would make sure who ever wins through the vote definitely wins no matter what I or others think – I am 100% honest with these and disagree sometimes with what people thing but the fact is that is what the majority thinks so they are The Winner and we really can’t argue with that!
Anyway – I have typed enough just remember